(Press-News.org) By the time they reach age 18, about 12% of American children experience a confirmed case of maltreatment in the form of neglect, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, according to a new study by researchers at Yale University.
The numbers are even more sobering for black and Native American children, with one in five black children and one in seven Native American children experiencing maltreatment during the time period studied. The results are published in the June 2 issue of the journal JAMA Pediatrics.
The authors estimated the cumulative prevalence of confirmed childhood maltreatment by age 18 using the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System Child File, which includes information on all U.S. children with a confirmed report of maltreatment. Analysis of data between 2004 and 2011 showed that over 5.6 million children had experienced maltreatment during this time period.
"Confirmed child maltreatment is dramatically underestimated in this country. Our findings show that it is far more prevalent than the 1 in 100 that is currently reported," said first author Christopher Wildeman, associate professor of sociology and faculty fellow at the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale.
Wildeman, his colleagues at other institutions, and in the Yale Departments of Pediatrics and Sociology, provide cumulative, rather than annual, estimates that confirmed child maltreatment is common.
"Maltreatment is on the scale of other major public health concerns that affect child health and well-being," he said. "Because child maltreatment is also a risk factor for poor mental and physical health outcomes throughout life, the results of this study provide valuable epidemiologic information."
INFORMATION:
Other authors on the study include Natalia Emanuel, John M. Leventhal, M.D., Emily Putnam-Hornstein, Jane Waldfogel, and Hedwig Lee.
Citation:
JAMA Pediatrics doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.410
Nearly 1 in 8 American children are maltreated before age 18
2014-06-02
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Study finds risk of recurrence low in smallest HER2+ breast cancer tumors
2014-06-02
OAKLAND, Calif. June 2, 2014 – Patients with specific HER2+ breast cancer tumors had a low risk of the cancer recurring five years after diagnosis, even without chemotherapy or treatment with a common antibody, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Researchers reviewed 16,975 cases of breast cancer diagnosed in Kaiser Permanente patients between 2000 and 2006. They found that for patients with the smallest HER2+ tumors (0.5 centimeters or less) who did not receive treatment with the antibody trastuzumab or chemotherapy, ...
The betrayal of the aphids
2014-06-02
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Aphids are devastating insect pests and cause great losses to agriculture worldwide. These sap-feeding plant pests harbor in their body cavity bacteria, which are essential for the aphids' fecundity and survival. Buchnera, the bacterium, benefits also because it cannot grow outside the aphid. This mutually beneficial relationship is sabotaged, however, by the bacterium which proceeds to betray the aphid, a research team led by scientists at the University of California, Riverside has found.
"Although this betrayal is unintentional, it nevertheless ...
First survey of ACOs reveals surprising level of physician leadership
2014-06-02
LEBANON, NH (June 2, 2014) – In spite of early concerns that hospitals' economic strengths would lead them to dominate the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), a new study published in the June issue of Health Affairs reveals the central role of physician leadership in the first wave of ACOs.
"The broad reach of physician leadership in ACOs has important implications for the future of health care reform", said Carrie Colla, PhD, lead investigator of the study. "A central role for physicians in the leadership of ACOs is likely to have a powerful influence ...
Decomposing logs show local factors undervalued in climate change predictions
2014-06-02
A new Yale-led study challenges the long-held assumption that climate is the primary driver of how quickly organic matter decomposes in different regions, a key piece of information used in formulating climate models.
In a long-term analysis conducted across several sites in the eastern United States, a team of researchers found that local factors — from levels of fungal colonization to the specific physical locations of the wood — play a far greater role than climate in wood decomposition rates and the subsequent impacts on regional carbon cycling.
Because decomposition ...
Resveratrol supplements cause pancreatic problems in developing fetus
2014-06-02
PORTLAND, Ore. — A widely available dietary supplement that had been considered safe — and that some claim provides anti-aging and other health benefits — caused significant developmental abnormalities in the pancreas of offspring of pregnant monkeys who were given the supplement, according to a study published today in the FASEB Journal, from the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology.
Because of the results, authors of the study strongly recommend that pregnant women or women who might get pregnant avoid taking the supplement.
The supplement contains ...
JCI online ahead of print table of contents for June 2, 2014
2014-06-02
Mucin concentration contributes to a sticky situation in cystic fibrosis
Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) accumulate thick, sticky mucus in the lungs that clogs the airways and leads to life-threatening lung infections. It has recently been proposed that differing concentrations of mucin with in mucus layers of the CF lung contribute to decreased mucus clearance; however, it has been challenging to accurately access mucin concentration. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Mehmet Kesimer and colleagues at the University of North Carolina applied size ...
Modern ocean acidification is outpacing ancient upheaval, study suggests
2014-06-02
Some 56 million years ago, a massive pulse of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere sent global temperatures soaring. In the oceans, carbonate sediments dissolved, some organisms went extinct and others evolved.
Scientists have long suspected that ocean acidification played a part in the crisis—similar to today, as manmade CO2 combines with seawater to change its chemistry. Now, for the first time, scientists have quantified the extent of surface acidification from those ancient days, and the news is not good: the oceans are on track to acidify at least as much as they did ...
Study: Hurricanes with female names more deadly than male-named storms
2014-06-02
In the coming Atlantic hurricane season, watch out for hurricanes with benign-sounding names like Dolly, Fay or Hanna. According to a new article from a team of researchers at the University of Illinois, hurricanes with feminine names are likely to cause significantly more deaths than hurricanes with masculine names, apparently because storms with feminine names are perceived as less threatening.
An analysis of more than six decades of death rates from U.S. hurricanes shows that severe hurricanes with a more feminine name result in a greater death toll, simply because ...
ASU researcher leads national effort to transform undergraduate biology education
2014-06-02
TEMPE, Ariz. — During the past few decades, the field of biology has dramatically expanded, incorporating many diverse sub-disciplines and specialty areas such as microbiology and evolutionary biology. However, teaching biology to undergraduate students has not kept pace with the changes, and core biology curriculum varies widely from university to university, and classroom to classroom.
In an effort to both capture the diversity of biology and condense what is taught, an Arizona State University researcher is leading a grassroots effort to improve biology education throughout ...
New UGA research engineers microbes for the direct conversion of biomass to fuel
2014-06-02
Athens, Ga. – The promise of affordable transportation fuels from biomass—a sustainable, carbon neutral route to American energy independence—has been left perpetually on hold by the economics of the conversion process. New research from the University of Georgia has overcome this hurdle allowing the direct conversion of switchgrass to fuel.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, documents the direct conversion of biomass to biofuel without pre-treatment, using the engineered bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii.
Pre-treatment ...